The Jerusalem Post reports that he is visiting Israel: "Kiss rocker Gene Simmons back in Israel after 51 years," by David Brinn.
The Israeli-born superstar calls boycotting artists "idiots," says "there ain't no place like Israel on Earth."The article explains Simmon's background:
52 years after leaving Israel as the impoverished nine-year-old son of a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, Chaim Witz returned to his birth country this week under different circumstances - as mega-millionaire rock star and TV personality Gene Simmons.
“It’s amazing to be back here,” said the outspoken 61-year-old co-founder of rock legends Kiss on Tuesday in Jerusalem’s David Citadel Hotel where his entourage has taken over eight rooms. Simmons is here with his long-time companion Shannon Tweed and their son Nick to film episodes of their US reality show part of his reality show, "Gene Simmons Family Jewels."
Simmons’ rags to riches story had a particularly difficult beginning as his father, a carpenter in Tirat Carmel, was barely able to eke out a living for his wife and son. When Simmons’ Hungarian-born mother Flora left her husband and moved with the young Witz to Jackson Heights, Queens in 1960 in pursuit of the American dream, they were not far removed from the European nightmare the family had experienced in the Holocaust.
Imprisoned at Auschwitz at age 14, Flora saw her mother, grandmother and almost all of her family go the gas chambers, but it was a story that Simmons, who changed his name to Gene Klein in the US and eventually to Simmons, didn’t hear until much later.
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